Polypharmacology in Drug Discovery

Jens-Uwe Peters, PhD, works in the Medicinal Chemistry Department at F. Hoffmann-La Roche. In his ten years at Roche, he has been involved in numerous drug discovery projects, has contributed to Early Safety Profiling initiatives, and has researched opportunities for polypharmacological drug discovery. Dr. Peters is author or coauthor on twenty-six journal papers and is named on twenty-two patents.

List of contributors. Preface.

Introduction: the case for polypharmacology
Andrew L. Hopkins

Part A: Polypharmacology – a safety concern in drug discovery.

1 The relevance of off-target polypharmacology
Bruce D. Car

2 Screening for safety-relevant off-target activities
Laszlo Urban, Steven Whitebread, Jacques Hamon, Dmitri Mikhailov and Kamal Azzaoui

2.1 Introduction.

2.2 General aspects.

2.3 Selection of off-targets.

2.4 In silico approaches to off-target profiling.

2.5 Summary and conclusions.

3 Pharmacological promiscuity and molecular properties
Jens-Uwe Peters

3.1 Introduction: pharmacological promiscuity in the history of drug discovery.

3.2 Lipophilicity.

3.3 Molecular weight.

3.4 Ionisation state.

3.5 Other molecular descriptors and structural motifs.

3.6 Implications for drug discovery.

4 Kinases as antitargets in genotoxicity
Stephan Kirchner

4.1 Protein Kinases and inhibitor-binding sites.

4.2 Cyclin-Dependent Kinases (CDKs) controlling unregulated cell proliferation.

4.3 Mitotic kinases as guardians protecting cells from aberrant chromosome segregation.

5 Activity at cardiovascular ion channels: a key issue for drug discovery
Ian M. Bell, Mark T. Bilodeau and Armando A. Lagrutta

5.1 Introduction.

5.2 Screening methods.

5.3 Structural insights into the interaction between drugs and CV ion channels.

5.4 Medicinal Chemistry approaches.

5.5 Conclusion.

6 Prediction of side effects based on fingerprint profiling and data mining
Jacques Migeon

6.1 Introduction to BioPrint.

6.2 The pharmacological fingerprint.

6.3 Antidepressant example.

6.4 Profile similarity at non-therapeutic targets.

6.5 Interpreting the polypharmacology profile.

6.6 Methods.

6.7 Patterns of activity.

6.8 Integrating function profile data with traditional pharmacological binding data.

6.9 Analysis of the antifungal tioconazole.

6.10 Conclusions.

Part B: Polypharmacology – an opportunity for drug discovery.

7 Polypharmacological drugs – "magic shotguns" for psychiatric diseases
Wesley K. Kroeze and Bryan L. Roth

7.1 Introduction.

7.2 Definition.

7.3 The discovery and extent of promiscuity among psychiatric drugs.

7.4 Why are so many psychiatric drugs promiscuous?

7.5 Conclusions.

8 Polypharmacological kinase inhibitors: new hopes for the therapy of cancer
Annalisa Petrelli

8.1 Targeted therapies: a new era in the treatment of cancer.

8.2 The single-targeted therapy.

8.3 From single to multi-targeted drugs in cancer therapy.

8.4 Polypharmacology kinase inhibitors in clinical practice and under development.

8.5 Concluding remarks.

9 Polypharmacology as an emerging trend in antibacterial discovery
Lynn L. Silver

9.1 Introduction.

9.2 Classical antibacterial polypharmacology.

9.3 New approaches to multi-targeted single pharmacophores.

9.4 Synthetic lethals.

9.5 Hybrid molecules.

9.6 Conclusions.

10 A "magic shotgun" perspective on anticonvulsant mechanisms
Matt T. Bianchi and Kathy Chuang

10.1 Introduction.

10.2 Anticonvulsant mechanism.

10.3 Defining promiscuity.

10.4 Promiscuity: lessons from endogenous signaling.

10.5 Promiscuity: lessons from anticonvulsant electrophysiology.

10.6 Use of anticonvulsants in disorders other than epilepsy.

10.7 Experimental and theoretical support for a "Magic Shotgun" approach.

10.8 Current multi-target strategies.

10.9 Practical considerations.

10.10 Conclusion.

11 Selective Optimization of Side Activities (SOSA): a promising way for drug discovery
Thierry Langer and Camille-Georges Wermuth

11.1 Introduction.

11.2 Definition and principle.

11.3 Rationale of SOSA.

11.4 Establishing the SOSA approach.

11.5 A successful example of the SOSA approach.

11.6 Other examples of SOSA switches.

11.7 Discussion.

11.8 Computer-assisted design using pharmacophores.

11.9 Conclusions.

Part C: Selected approaches to polypharmacological drug discovery

12 Selective multi-targeted drugs
Richard Morphy

12.1 Introduction.

12.2 Lead Generation.

12.3 Lead optimization.

12.4 Case studies.

12.5 Summary.

13 Computational multitarget drug discovery
Jeremy A. Horst, Adrian Laurenzi, Brady Bernard and Ram Samudrala

13.1 Introduction.

13.2 The pharmacologic hunt of yesteryear.

13.3.Established technological advancements.

13.4.Computational drug discovery.

13.5.Recent technical improvements.

13.6.Emerging concepts.

13.7 Summary.

14 Behavior-based screening as an approach to polypharmacological ligands
Dani Brunner, Vadim Alexandrov, Barbara Caldarone, Taleen Hanania, David Lowe, Jeff Schneider and Jayaraman Chandrasekhar

14.1 The Challenges of CNS Drug Discovery.

14.2 In vivo high throughput screening.

14.3 Screening libraries of compounds.

14.4 Relationship between molecular properties and in vivo CNS activity.

14.5 Following screening hits in secondary assays.

14.6 Potential therapeutic value of dual adenosine compounds.

14.7 Summary.

15 Multicomponent Therapeutics
Alexis A. Borisy, Grant R. Zimmermann and Joseph Lehár

15.1 Introduction.

15.2 Drug synergies are statistically more context dependent.

15.3 How a synergistic mechanism can lead to therapeutic selectivity.

15.4 Discussion.

Part D: Case studies

16 The discovery of sunitinib as a multitarget treatment of cancer
Catherine Delbaldo, Camelia Colichi, Marie-Paule Sablin, Chantal Dreyer, Bertrand Billemont, Sandrine Faivre and Eric Raymond

16.1 A brief introduction to tumor angiogenesis.

16.2 The discovery of sunitinib: from drug design to first evidences of clinical activity.

16.3 Pharmacology of sunitinib.

16.4 Safety of sunitinib.

16.5 Activity of Sunitinib.

16.6 Surrogate imaging techniques to capture vascular changes.

16.7 Surrogate biomarkers.

16.8 Conclusion.

17 Antipsychotics
Claus Riemer

17.1 Definition and diagnosis of schizophrenia.

17.2 Etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

17.3 Epidemiology.

17.4 Medical practice and treatment options.

17.5 Case studies.

17.6 CATIE.

17.7 Conclusions.

18 Triple Uptake Inhibitors ("Broad Spectrum" Antidepressants)
Phil Skolnick

18.1 Introduction.

18.2 What is the rationale for developing triple uptake inhibitors as antidepressants?

18.3 Preclinical data.

18.4 Clinical data.

18.5 Concluding remarks.

19 Therapeutic potential of small molecules modulating the cyclooxygenase and 5-lipoxygenase pathway
Stefan Laufer and Wolfgang Albrecht

19.1 Targets of the eicosanoid pathway.

19.2 Rationale for development of dual inhibitors of the cyclooxygenase and 5-lipoxygenase pathway.

19.3 Dual inhibitors of the cyclooxygenase and 5-lipoxygenase pathway.

19.4 Development of Licofelone.

19.5 Conclusions.

20 Drug research leading to imatinib and beyond to nilotinib
Paul W. Manley and Jürg Zimmermann

20.1 Introduction.

20.2 Historical background.

20.3 BCR-ABL1 as the molecular target for CML therapy.

21 Towards antimalarial hybrid drugs
Bernard Meunier

22 Multitarget drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease
Andrea Cavalli and Maria Laura Bolognesi

22.1 Introduction.

22.2 Case studies.

22.3 Conclusions and perspectives.

23 Carbonic anhydrases: off-targets, add-on activities, or emerging novel targets?
Claudiu Supuran

23.1 Introduction.

23.2 Carbonic anhydrase inhibition.

23.3 Topiramate and zonisamide, antiepileptics with potent antiobesity action.

23.4 Sulfonamide coxibs with antitumor activity due to CA IX/XII inhibition.

23.5 Sulfamates with steroid sulfatase and carbonic anhydrase inhibitory action as anticancer agents in clinical development.

23.6 Lacosamide, an antiepileptic with a strange binding mode to Cas.

23.7 The protein tyrosine kinase inhibitors imatinib and nilotinib strongly inhibit several mammalian CA isoforms.

23.8 Conclusions.